Second Shot
by headtrip parade
Summary: Deacon, Rayna, and those around them get second chances while adjusting to a new little guy on the block.
1. Chapter 1

**Hello again! These chapters won't necessarily have any direct sequence to one another, they're just all sort of revolving around our new guy and his impact on everyone around him. Since I prefer to build on canon and missed moments, I'm not usually one for introducing new characters but this kid has been nagging at me for the longest. :) I still tried to stay as canon as possible. **

**A huge shout out to Shiny Jewel and much thanks for her awesome words of wisdom, suggestions, and her careful beta-ing. Enjoy your "baby bliss," my friend. :)**

* * *

Deacon Claybourne was hardly a heavy sleeper. He woke up for thunderstorms, trains, the next door neighbor's dog barking, and sometimes even his daughter's alarm clock a good three rooms down the hall. Hell, he caught himself wakened by the buzzer on the toaster _downstairs_ once.

Rayna had always called him a hopeless case when it came to shut eye and in most fashions he was inclined to agree with her. He certainly did wake up for just about everything, so it was not surprising to him that he felt uneasy when he rolled over and her spot was cold.

He was also quick to notice that the Pack 'n Play at the edge of their bed was vacant, with the exception of one lone receiving blanket.

He moved his head from side to side, adjusting his eyes to the darkness but also inquiring to himself how he'd managed to sleep through not only their son's cries, but Rayna's subsequent tending to him and apparently leaving the room.

He stood and stretched, catching a glance at the clock as his flannel pants drug beneath his feet.

_3:18 AM._

He opened the door and peered out quietly, noticing the cracked door next to the lone night light in the hallway.

He crossed the hall and opened the door gently, grinning sleepily at the sight before him: Rayna lounging in the glider that she had pulled closer to the crib, looking over the railing and humming the melodies of "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot."

Her face was illuminated only by some sort of revolving lamp contraption she obsessively shopped for a mere two days before she gave birth. Deacon didn't quite understand what was wrong with a regular lamp or night light and why it was so important that it went around in circles, but he was in little position to argue with her in that state.

"You know," he began quietly, edging just a tad closer and shutting the door softly behind him, "I've always said you were the only one better at that song than Johnny Cash."

She smirked, not once taking her eyes off the tiny infant in the crib.

"You mean I'm better than the man you just had to name this little guy after?"

Deacon grinned, softly running his hand over the top of her head and following her gaze toward the baby.

Jasper Cash Claybourne had been quite the surprise for everyone.

He'd first made his presence known no more than ten minutes before Rayna was leaving to take the stage at the Opry. Some may have called it an inopportune time to take a test, but she wasn't sure she could perform without knowing for sure. On the contrary, finding out did nothing to settle her nerves.

She somehow made it through her set without vomiting, which she later figured was because Deacon would do enough vomiting for them both when she got home that evening and informed him of her discovery.

"_Why are you sick?" she asked, standing against the bathroom door frame as he hovered over the toilet._

"_I'm still figuring out how to take care of one big enough to take care of herself and now you want me to take care of one that's completely helpless?"_

"_Deacon." She rolled her eyes. "I told you we needed to be more careful." _

"_And I told you to go back on the pill!"_

"_I was on the pill for twenty years. It was starting to make me cranky."_

She grinned at the memory, laughing a bit to herself as she remembered the look on Deacon's face before he muttered something to the effect of, _"God help me,"_ and let his dinner go again.

He hadn't gotten all of his nerves out that day, and to be honest she wasn't sure when he finally did, but she wasn't surprised at all when on the day their little man came into the world, Deacon was so completely _ready._ She'd never doubted that he would be, even though he obviously spent a ton of time doubting himself.

"He's so tiny," he whispered, slowly reaching his hand towards the infant's face. Rayna quickly grabbed his wrist. "What's that for?"

"He sleeps about as heavy as you do," she smiled. "Except he's a lot louder when you wake him up and a hell of a lot harder to put back down."

Deacon chuckled and brought his hand back to Rayna's shoulders, kissing the top of her head.

"Come back to bed, darlin'. You gotta be exhausted."

She nodded.

"I am, babe, but I just wanna sit here and watch him forever. He's the last one I'll ever have and I promise we'll wake up tomorrow and he'll be going into high school."

Deacon winced. The idea of his other child growing up so lightning fast that he missed it all was slightly unsettling.

"He won't tomorrow, Ray. Now come on."

She didn't say anything, just pulled his neck down to her level and placed her lips on his with a specific energy that he hadn't encountered in weeks. As she broke away, she continued to place small pecks all the way up his cheek until she reached his ear.

"Thank you," she whispered. He almost shivered.

"For what?"

"For the two best surprises of my life."

He smirked, running his fingers tightly over the top of her head. She closed her eyes at the massage-like contact.

"What about Daphne?"

Rayna smiled.

"Honey, she was planned down to the time of day." Deacon nodded, gazing up to the ceiling as if in deep thought. "What, babe?"

"I think we've been going about this the wrong way."

"Nah." She stood slowly, and gingerly wrapped her arms around his neck, wincing slightly at the soreness that still plagued her two weeks after the delivery. "We just need to hope our kids aren't as spontaneous as we are."


	2. Chapter 2

**Thanks again to Shiny Jewel for her beta read! **

* * *

Maddie propped her socked feet on the coffee table, simultaneously discovering just how difficult it was to get comfortable while feeding an infant.

Part of her instantly regretted offering to babysit so her mother could take a much needed shower and nap, but she kept at it until she was finally settled in the deep cushions and quickly found her groove.

She studied the boy's face as he sucked furiously on the bottle, bringing his miniature hands to hers as she held it. Every so often he would open his bright, vivacious eyes and look at her.

She grinned at him, ever so softly mouthing the word 'Hi.'

It had admittedly taken her a while to get used to the idea of him.

Her initial reaction was nothing short of disgust at the knowledge that her parents were actually having sexual relations, as she had been quick to convince herself that their moving in together meant the Lucy and Ricky twin beds were being delivered any day.

No such luck.

Soon, disgust turned to jealousy, then jealousy into excitement, then excitement to fear.

She was afraid of the fact that Deacon would raise this baby from the beginning—would it mean he was more special than her? Would she have to fight for her father's love?

She knew the answer, but nothing mended until the day Jasper was born and she got to hold his feather light frame in her arms for the very first time. She almost didn't care about anyone else in the room or what they felt but him—she promised him that very day that she was going to be the best big sister in the world to him.

Now she found herself thrilled to come home in the afternoon and be with him. Like clockwork, she'd rush inside the house and run up to her room, quickly tossing her backpack onto her bed and immediately going to wherever he was in the house.

She would often gaze at his face and try to find features they shared. She'd even dug out a box of her own baby photos to compare the two. The biggest and most pressing similarity was their eyes: Deep, moody pools of watercolor that spelled out everything they wanted to say. Their noses were also similar, but she noted that his hair was much darker than hers and his features were much more defined for a baby. She'd laughed a couple of times when she realized that she just looked like any generic infant mush, and Jasper, for being so young and new to the earth, looked strikingly like their father.

_Speak of the devil,_ she thought, as the back door swung open and Deacon walked in.

"Hi," she smiled brightly.

"Hey," he grinned, removing his bag from his shoulder and placing it on the back of the barstool. "How was school?"

She shrugged, adjusting her arm ever so slightly to Jasper's weight as he continued to aggressively demolish the bottle.

"Good, I guess. Same old stuff."

Deacon raised his eyebrow and leaned down to kiss the top of her head.

"Same lesson as yesterday, huh? I think your mama and I are getting ripped off."

She smirked slightly, raising her sarcastic eyes to meet his.

"No."

He smirked back and lightly brushed a finger over his son's forehead.

"Where's your mama?" he asked, sitting down on the other side of the couch.

"Taking a shower, or a nap. Or both."

Deacon nodded, noticing the boy beginning to squirm in Maddie's arms.

"You want me to take him so you can go upstairs?"

"No." Maddie shook her head, throwing the burp cloth over her shoulder and lifting her brother up to face it. She gingerly began patting him on the back. "I like spending time with him."

Deacon focused his gaze on the two of them. She and Daphne both were excellent big sisters. Not that he thought they wouldn't be, but they'd both definitely shown more interest and taken on larger roles than he would have thought girls their age would want to.

"You're good with him."

She grinned, laughing slightly as a fairly substantial burp escaped Jasper's small body.

"Thank you."

"Seriously, Maddie." He put his hand on her shoulder as she once again adjusted Jasper in her arms. She looked up at him.

"You and Daphne both. You're both so great with him and you help out with him and around the house and I really appreciate it. I know your mama does, too."

Maddie nodded, feeling herself fill with a sense of pride. While she certainly wasn't volunteering to care for her brother to score brownie points with her parents, just hearing her father tell her how much he appreciated her made her feel like a million bucks.

She smiled.

"You know, I was looking at him earlier and you know what I think?"

"What's that?"

"I think he looks like you."

Deacon chuckled and scooted in a little closer, leaning over her shoulder to look at the now sleeping boy.

"That's the rumor."

"I didn't really look like you or mom. I just looked squishy. He's not, though. He's handsome."

"Oh, come on." He brought his eyes to her face. "You were a beautiful baby."

She winced slightly.

"When's the first time you met me?"

He sighed. She'd asked every other question on the face of the planet, but never this. It had always been a bittersweet memory for him, though the texture of it had changed since he'd discovered she was his daughter. At first it was downright bitter, but the more time went on he found it becoming sweet.

"You were about three months old. You had at least five or six pounds on this guy. I was moving out of rehab for the last time. They were sending me to a kind of in-between place just to make sure I was better—"

"Which you were." It was a statement more than a question, he observed. She kept her eyes down on Jasper's face, rocking him ever so slightly.

Deacon felt tears welling in his eyes.

"I was, yeah. I was better and leaving that place and walking out with my stuff when I saw your mama standing just down the sidewalk. She was propped up against that old Range Rover she used to drive." He smirked at the thought. "She was standing there holding you and I thought she'd never looked more beautiful."

Maddie continued to stare at her brother.

"What'd you guys say?"

"She just asked me how I was doing, told me I looked good and stuff. Then she said she wanted us to meet and asked if I wanted to hold you. I was scared to death I was going to drop you, but she helped me. She made sure I didn't."

"What'd you think of me?"

His breath caught slightly in his throat as he choked back tears of the memory. He hadn't shared it with anyone but an AA crowd since he'd found out about her.

"I thought you were the prettiest, most precious thing I'd ever laid my eyes on. I didn't know you were mine, you know, but I still… I did fall in love with you, Maddie."

She finally looked up at him slowly, pushing her hair back to reveal tears slowly running down her cheeks; her eyes puzzled.

"Why?"

"Because you were your mama's."


	3. Chapter 3

**Thank you to Shiny Jewel for her beta skills and general awesomeness! Also a huge thank you to everyone who took the time to read and review. It means a lot. :) **

* * *

It had been four weeks to the day since Rayna gave birth.

She'd been so eagerly awaiting it that she'd even set a reminder on her calendar, though the notion that she'd actually forget was absurd.

Her doctor had ordered her to avoid anything strenuous for that time, specifically mentioning cleaning and heavy lifting. Rayna groaned at the thought.

Sure, she had professional cleaners in her house once a week, but she felt out of control not being able to stay on top of everything in the interim. Maddie and Daphne had been huge helps, but she was still itching to get back into her normal headspace.

She'd also immediately wanted to completely void her closet of all the maternity clothes. She adored her baby boy with every fiber of her being, but more than ever she knew he was it for her. Her age notwithstanding, she didn't feel she could physically or mentally go through it again.

She grinned to herself as she pulled each and every stitch of maternity fabric off its hanger and folded it neatly, thinking of how much worse he was on her than either of the girls had been. She labored for seventeen hours with Maddie, fourteen with Daphne, and only ten with Jasper; however she was by far the most uncomfortable with him.

As she threw the last swollen top into the box and taped it up, she thought back to the delivery room. The doctor, upon seeing her stressed condition and taking some notes on both her and the baby's vitals, had urged her to consider a Cesarean. Through all of the pain, pressure, and anguish she had somehow managed to stick to her guns and refuse, though she did make a deal with him that if any point came where either she or the baby were actually in danger she would do it.

She brushed a stray piece of hair behind her ear, staring at the box and remembering Deacon's words to her as the doctor left the room.

"_You sure you don't wanna think about it, Ray?"_

"_Yes," she bit back. "I haven't done it yet and I'm not starting now."_

_She lay on her side with her back to him, as that was the most comfortable position she could find for that particular moment; and God bless, it wasn't even comfortable. He softly stroked the side of her head, his face as close to hers as he could get it with the hospital bed in the way._

"_I know, darlin', but aren't you ready to just… I don't know, have him be here?"_

_She took a deep breath and tried to stifle her tears, to no avail. _

"_I am, but God damn it I can't do this, Deacon. It's too much. Why did we fucking do this?"_

_He grinned and reached around her to place his hand over her shaking ones, steadying them. _

"_Because of how worth it it's gonna be when the hard part's over."_

She smiled and braced herself before squatting down and picking up the box.

It was more worth it than she could stand to tell. Her children were everything to her; they were every reason she made every decision she'd ever made; they were every reason she existed.

* * *

_Calm. _

No other words went through Deacon's head; at best, that particular one was vaguely traveling through his orbit.

He lay on the couch in the downstairs rec room; Jasper snoozing peacefully in front of him in his swing. One of the first, most prominent things he discovered about parenthood was the necessity of using the baby's naptime wisely, particularly if it looked like one might be spending several hours at rehearsal.

He found himself teetering on the edge of the blessed infinite abyss known otherwise as sleep when a loud grunt roused him, followed by a fairly large crash and a shriek. His senses failed him a fair bit, as he looked around in fuzzy confusion rather than getting up to investigate the suspicious noises.

Right at that moment, a large box landed on the floor in front of the staircase, just within his peripheral vision. He stood quickly at the sight of Rayna hurriedly walking down the stairs.

"What the hell, Ray?"

She blew a piece of hair out of her face, seemingly half embarrassed and half determined to not let the box beat her.

"Bringing my clothes down."

Deacon rolled his eyes and leaned down to grab the mangled cardboard.

"Damn it, Rayna. You know you could've just asked me."

"Well, you had Jasper and everything, so..."

He shook his head and stood with the box, carrying it towards the back storage room.

"He's asleep."

She walked towards the door to open it for him, rolling her eyes at his insistence.

"Maybe I just want to get back to normal; get back my energy, you know?"

He edged his way into the small room, somehow skillfully maneuvering his way around countless other boxes without falling or dropping the one he was carrying. She made a mental note that the room needed to be cleaned.

"Did the doctor clear you?"

She nodded and watched him drop the box to the floor.

"Well, sort of. He said four weeks. It's been exactly four weeks."

Deacon sighed, resting his arms atop one of the box stacks in the back of the room.

"You were counting?"

She grinned silently, leaning over to look at a few items in boxes around her. As she picked up a small shoe box, her breath somewhat caught in her throat as she noticed the stack of DVDs inside.

She slowly pulled a handful of them out, recognizing them immediately.

_Maddie's home videos._

There were videos from her infancy all the way through her first soccer game. She nearly shuddered; realization washing over her that Deacon had never once laid eyes on them.

She'd always wanted to show him; to allow him the best sort of glimpse into the parts of Maddie's life that he missed. Somehow, perhaps because of fear, she had never volunteered the treasures.

She smiled sadly as she ran her fingers delicately over the cases.

"What, Ray?"

She glanced up at him, her eyes glistening slightly.

"You have time for some movies before rehearsal?"

* * *

Hot water cascaded from the faucet, singeing Rayna's perfectly manicured hands. She didn't really notice, as she had turned this into something of a nightly ritual—someone, usually herself or Maddie, would give Jasper his bath. Deacon would then dress him and get him all ready for bed while she prepared his bottle and scrubbed the dirty ones in the sink before placing them in the steam sanitizer.

She grinned.

Deacon had fought her tooth and nail, failing to see the point in the $150 machine. She'd argued that the microwave sanitizer was not an option, as she didn't want some sort of radioactive waves compromising the bottle. She also had to explain to him that soap and water simply didn't do, what with so many diseases around.

He had asked what she did for Maddie since sanitizers weren't widely popular back then. She laughed quietly at the memory of her telling him she used soap and water, right as she turned around and picked the sanitizer up from the shelf and carried it to the check-out line without another word.

The two of them together cracked her up.

She smiled again, remembering how a young Maddie had them both cracking up just hours earlier.

Rayna had shown him everything—Maddie coming home from the hospital, her birthdays, her dance recitals, her softball games, soccer games, piano recitals, and her Disney karaoke shows… no stone had been left unturned. Oddly enough, she found he reacted better to seeing Teddy in the videos than he did to seeing himself in a few.

He'd often glance from the TV to their son in his swing, trying his hardest to remain stoic as he watched himself unknowingly give his daughter her first Cabbage Patch Kid on her second birthday. He tried not to break down as he watched the two of them try to strum the guitar together on Rayna's tour bus when she was but three.

Rayna sighed, remembering the single tear that did manage to fall at the sight of that same three year old running wobbly through the back hallways of an arena, frantically turning her pigtailed head from side to side.

"_What's wrong, baby?"_

"_Where's he at, mama?"_

"_Who?"_

"_Deagon."_

He had laughed at her pronunciation of his name. As smart and advanced as she was, her C's had not been quite as forthcoming as everything else. She always wanted to ride in the 'gar,' or pet the 'gat,' or put on a jacket when she was 'gold.'

She'd been nothing but precious to him since the first time he held her, just as precious as he was to her. It was not lost on Rayna that they had bonded from the very beginning, nor was it lost on him now as he relived these memories of the two of them together; so connected, but so oblivious.

Rayna shut the faucet off and wiped her hands on a kitchen towel, tossing it aside as she sought to grab Jasper's bottle from the beeping bottle warmer—the one appliance Deacon had actually not fought. All it took when he did start to question was Rayna asking him how he'd like cold breast milk straight from the fridge. That shut him right up.

She picked up the bottle and turned to sprint up the stairs, flipping off the kitchen light behind her as she did so. Quietly, she opened the door to the nursery.

"Okay, guys—" she stopped upon finding it completely dark and completely empty. She wasn't completely surprised, as Deacon would often take the baby into their room to watch TV until she came up.

She turned and walked across the hall, brushing stray pieces of her loose bun out of her face. She opened her bedroom door, finding it silent and completely dark except for the lamp on her own nightstand.

Her heart skipped a beat as she caught glimpse of Deacon passed out on his back; their son sleeping peacefully on his chest. Deacon's left arm lay limply at his side, while his right hand rested protectively on Jasper's back.

She brought her hand up to her mouth as tears welled in her eyes.

_This._

She always heard Deacon describe the moments he felt validated him—the first time he played the Ryman, the moment Johnny Cash called him to play on his record, or the moment he was nominated for his first solo CMA—but all of those moments were dust compared to this moment.

This was the moment Deacon Claybourne was meant for.


End file.
